“You’re a senior?” Clover echoes hollowly.

Lisette resets her vintage watch with a click. “You didn’t know?” she asks.

Clover assumed they were the same age, because they had met in the same class.

“You’re a junior, right?” Lisette confirms, smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt.

“I - yeah.”

They’re eating lunch on the lawn behind the school, a usually quiet and shady spot far from prying eyes. Clover isn’t unaware of her social status, and suggested meeting here to help Lisette save face. An innocent conversation of the greater mysteries of life outside public school has turned into this, and she feels so foolish for not realizing it.

The pause turns chilly, and Lisette puts her can of pink lemonade down and frowns. “Are you okay? You’re kind of... spacing out.”

“Hmm?” Clover blinks. “Oh, uh, sorry. I’m just surprised. I hadn’t realized you were older than me.”

Lisette's lips split into a wicked grin. “That doesn’t bother you, does it?” she teases, and Clover shakes her head. The smile fades, and the frown returns. “Are you really okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” Lisette starts, “I know we haven’t been hanging out for more than a few weeks, and even though I’ve known you for two years I still don’t know you…”

Clover holds her breath.

“But I’ve heard people say some stuff,” she admits, and something cold and nasty touches Clover’s skin, freezes her in place. “I’ve heard that you… well…”

“That I’m crazy?”

Lisette picks at her manicured nails, the same shade of her lemonade. “Yeah. But I don’t believe them. If you’re comfortable with it, I want to hear it from you, because it doesn't matter what other people tell me.”

It occurs to Clover, suddenly and painfully, that besides Doctor Horadi, no one has ever asked about her side of the story. She’s overcome with the desire to tell Lisette the truth, about herself, about her life, about her other body grinning stupidly as he hands Felix half his sandwich and they share a joke, Rosario punching them both in the shoulder a little too hard.

She knows she can’t, though.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” Clover whispers.

Lisette leans in close, a fire burning in her azure eyes, and whispers back, “Try me.”

Her mind races. “I’ve been seeing the same psychologist since I was five years old. My parents thought something wasn’t right with me, and I was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia.” She shrugs, ignoring the feverish heat in her flesh. “I did talk to myself a lot as a kid. I still do, sometimes. I space out a lot. Sometimes I don't notice when people talk to me."

"I noticed that part," Lisette murmurs.

Clover swallows. "My doctor and my mom never understood what was wrong, but I did. My problem was I was me. It's who I am, and they were afraid of what they didn’t understand.”

She doesn’t expect Lisette to be satisfied with her evasive answer, but Lisette reaches out, places her hand over Clover’s, cream against coffee, clouds  against earth. “I’m not afraid of you,” she whispers.

Clover squeezes her fingers, the breeze brushing the last of the summer heat from their skin.